Date｜08.12.2023-11.05.2024
Veune｜National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
“Are You Working Now?” invites the audience to reflect on forms of labour and work, and socioeconomic structures from our past, present and future. Thirteen invited artists will jointly contemplate one question: How do we define work? Beginning with the laborious and corporeal work methods of the past, “Are You Working Now” explores from the perspective of the post-pandemic present, new contemporary and future modes of work and living. The exhibition invites audiences to reflect on different modes of work while guiding us to contemplate the interrelationships between work, rest, and play; as well as ways in which the three achieve balance in a digital and technological era.
Traditional work modes that require “clocking in” may be few and far between these days, but each click on the internet records our activities and movements. These traces we leave in the digital space can be collected in the form of big data to be further transformed into revenue to become a new mode of commerce and trade. New work modes have subverted the traditional relationship between labour and capital in the past.
Through the perspectives of artists from different cultures and generations, the exhibition guides members of the audience to contemplate local and global issues, as well as to explore three sub-themes, namely: “Coal Mining to Data Mining,” “Self-exploitation,” and “Clocking Off.” The exhibition also guides the audience to contemplate the human exploitation and profiteering of labour and natural environment as a result of industrialisation. As robots and artificial intelligence gradually replaces some of the work done by humans, how will we re-regard concepts of physical labour and examine the significance of the body as labour. How will we shape and construct our own sense of existence and meaning if we no longer rely solely on traditional forms of production?
Artists
- Maurice BENAYOUN
- Yi CHEN
- Simon DENNY
- Harun FAROCKI
- John GERRARD
- Rosie GIBBENS
- I-Ting HOU
- Tehching HSIEH
- Ryoichi KUROKAWA
- Molleindustria
- Hito STEYERL
- Tzu-Ning WU
- Your Bros. Filmmaking Group (So Yo Hen)
